I blinked, and another drop landed on the base of my left thumb. Tears. I was fucking crying. I hadn’t allowed my body to rage as desired, so instead I was embracing the immense sadness for all she and Samantha had suffered. And not just them: Nishi, Mitsuko, Ayame, Sayuri, and any other women Jones had kept trapped in that basement hellhole.
My tears did not seem like a big enough sacrifice.
I felt like I should be bleeding for them. How did I right such atrocities? How could I ever look at Maisy again and not feel shame for not having been there to protect her? And Samantha… The little girl I loved so fucking much… How did I make up to her thefact that she’d been forced to live in a dog crate when she’d been so small and helpless?
Promising them love and safety in the future did not seem like a big enough ask.
“Do you hate me?”
My body snapped upright at the question. She was standing at the foot of the bed now, her back to me and angled in the direction of the bedroom door. Her head was tipped downward and her elbows were bent like she was holding her hands to her chest.
The fuck did she just say to me?
“Look at me.” Crap, my voice sounded monstrous.
But Maisy shook her head, her shoulders starting to curl over her hands too.
My barely contained rage fueled my command. “I said,look at me.”
Maisy’s body jerked, and with a stiff neck, she hesitantly looked over her shoulder at me. The fear and sadness on her beautiful face doused my anger. I never wanted to be the cause of her uncertainty. I wanted to be the one thing on this fucking planet she knew without question would be there for her.
ThepareoI had borrowed, or stolen depending on if I gave it back, from Aloiki’s closet fell to the floor at my feet with a single tug at the knot. I was not aroused in any way, shape, or form, and yet I felt my dick twitch as her eyes glanced down at it. But that only proved the hold she had over my body.
I walked down the bed, completely bare for her to see everything I was and am. As I approached her, she slowly turned her feet so she was facing me rather than the door, the escape.
Falling to my knees, I had no lei to present to her, but I was able to offer her my body and my words in my eternal commitment.“Ho?ohiki au e hele ma kou ?ao?ao i kela me keia aumoe a me ka ?ino. Me ke aloha e alaka?i ana i ko?u pu?uwai, e malama au i ko kaua maluhia, e pu?uhonua i ko kaua ?ohana, a e ho?oulu i ko kauaaloha i ko kaua mau la a pau.”I stared at her tear-filled sea-green eyes and felt a piece of my cracked soul mend. “I vow to walk beside you through every sunrise and storm. With love guiding my heart, I will protect our peace, cherish our family, and nurture our love for all our days.”
Maisy looked like she wasn’t breathing for several long seconds before she let out a shaky breath. “You don’t… I mean, you don’t…” She sniffled. “Why did you say that? I thought you were angry with me?—”
“For you,” I corrected sternly. “Angry, very angry,for you. I hate what was done to you, hate what you suffered through, hate that I wasn’t there to protect you even though I know that makes no logical sense. I don’t know why you lied about your age or who you were. I would like to say that it doesn’t matter, but we’ve already gone down that road. All I can promise you is that it won’t change my thoughts or feelings towards you. It won’t change my desires for our future. A shared future that includes you, me, and Samantha. And you might have to forgive me if I slip up every once in a while and call you ‘Caroline’. Or if you prefer ‘Caroline’, we can keep that. All that matters to me, baby, is you. Your health, your safety, your happiness.” I gestured towards myself. “I’m yours. However you want me, however you need me.”
She took a small step towards me. “I want to be Maisy. I want to figure out who I am without the overbearing, overpowering rule of a man suffocating me.”
I nodded, but tried not to show the sting of rejection. “I understand?—”
But she interrupted me. The first time of her doing so, that I could recall. “You’ve never suffocated me. You set me free, Tangaloa. You gave me this opportunity to learn who I am, and I want to keep learning.” She took another step forward, and added, “With you.”
My abdomen actually quivered at her statement. “I would love that. I never want to stand in your way.”
“I’m still younger than you. Just…notas youngas I led you to believe.”
I nodded, having already done the math. “That can also be reversed. I’m twelve years older than you. Do you want to be with someone twelve years older than you?”
“I would want to be with you even if you were forty years older than me.” Maisy stepped forward again, but though she was within arm’s reach, I did not move. “And I want you to know that my lie had nothing to do with you. When you first came into our lives, I was scared to share That Bastard’s fate. I did not want to be separated from Samantha or punished alongside him.”
I scowled. “I never would have punished you for his sins.”
“I know that now,” she said with a slight raise of her eyebrows. “I did not then. You were a stranger. All of you. Hard men who were sweet to me, but still men. I wanted to trust you, I wanted to believe in what you told me, but I still needed to learn to trust you.”
“Yet you took my offer to come to Hawai‘i?”
Her cheeks flushed adorably as she admitted, “I never expected you to be so…attentive. I knew about orphanages, and I thought you would leave us shortly after we arrived. When you asked me how old I was, I did not expect you to assume I was so young, and I thought my chances of getting separated from Samantha would be less if I was underage too.”
I hated that explanation, and hated even more that she even had considered that train of thought. But I also couldn’t fault her for it. Just because I knew I was trustworthy, did not mean she did.
“But you didn’t leave us,” she continued, coming closer again. “You stayed. You comforted us in the kitchen, and again on the plane. You told me about your home and how we would come to live with you. Every day you stripped away a new fear orunknown, and I knew I needed to tell you the truth. And I’m sorry I didn’t have the courage to do so earlier.”
I shook my head. “You have nothing to be sorry for. Yes, it would have saved me a lot of mental and emotional anxiety, but that’s my burden to bear, and as it turned out, it didn’t prevent me from falling in love with you or wanting to claim you.”